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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093667">Has that ever happened before?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbian_fan/pseuds/Lesbian_fan'>Lesbian_fan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ava and Sara Normal Life AU [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ava Sharpe Needs a Hug, AvaLance, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Sara Lance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Insecure Ava Sharpe, Insecure Sara Lance, Lesbian Ava Sharpe, Lesbian Character, POV Ava Sharpe, POV Sara Lance, Sara Lance Needs a Hug, Soft Ava Sharpe, Soft Sara Lance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 03:33:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093667</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbian_fan/pseuds/Lesbian_fan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ava and Sara have their first big fight.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ava and Sara Normal Life AU [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892539</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Has that ever happened before?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TW - Panic attacks</p><p>This one is really emotional, fair warning.</p><p>Also my end note is really personal, so if you don't want to read that just skip it nothing important there.</p><p>Come interact with me on Twitter @Lesbianfan1</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">January 2018</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>
    <span class="u">Sara’s POV</span>
  </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should buy a house instead of continuing to rent this one.” Ava says as they are sitting on the couch one night. The other woman looks shocked and scared immediately. This was out of nowhere, and if she’s being honest with herself she has no idea how buying a house even works.</p><p> </p><p>Money makes her nervous, especially large amounts of money like buying a house. “I don’t know, I don’t think that’s such a good idea”. Ava’s smile fades and her eyebrows furrow. “Why not?” She asks. “I just don’t think that it’s the right move.” Sara knows that they both have student loans and that there is no way they have enough money saved up to just buy a house outright. How does she expect them to be able to just buy a house?</p><p> </p><p>Ava gets upset really quickly after that. Sara has no idea how it went from 0 to 100 so fast. The tall blonde stands up and says, “Don’t follow me” then she puts on her shoes and is out the door before the other girl can even respond.</p><p> </p><p>She is just sitting there shocked for a few minutes. After she wraps her head around the fact that they are fighting right now (she thinks?) she pulls out her phone to send a text to Ava.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Babe, can we please talk about this?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>They have had small disagreements before but neither of them had ever left. This was terrifying for the smaller blonde. She sends a series of texts after no reply for 10 minutes.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I don’t even fully understand what we are fighting about right now.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Come on! Please answer me!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Aves, I really want to talk this out. Why did you leave?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>It’s now been 20 minutes since Ava had left, Sara was full on panicking. She never really panics, not anymore at least, she usually was calm and collected, but Ava has also never walked out in the middle of a conversation before either. Her mind immediately went to the worst.</p><p> </p><p>‘Don’t follow me as in I’ll be back or don’t follow me in I’m leaving for good?’ she thought. She wasn’t even thinking straight, she looks outside to see that Ava didn’t take their car, but she notices that Ava’s bicycle is gone. “Fuck” She screams into the empty house.</p><p> </p><p>She leans against the wall in the corner and curls up with her legs pulled to her chest. ‘She biked away and I’m never going to see her again’ she thought. Her vision was beginning to blur and she didn’t even realize she was crying until she could tastes salt on her lips. She doesn’t wipe the tears she just puts her head on her knees and gets consumed by the panic and negative thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>Her chest was constricting so much that it felt like her ribs were going to crack. She couldn’t catch her breath and it took everything she had not to start punching the walls and throwing things. After it had been 30 minutes the tears had dried, but the panic attack wasn’t over. She pulled out her phone to text Ava again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Look I know you’re mad, but I love you and I need you to come back.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I know I fucked something up. I don’t know what I did, but just tell me and I will try to fix this.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: You are coming back right?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Please come back.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I love you!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Sara was spiraling down fast. She didn’t even know what she was saying, or how many texts she had sent. By the time she had sent the last message it had been 57 minutes since Ava had walked out the door. Her hand is clutching her chest and she feels like she is dying. She feels like someone is squeezing her heart so hard that it might pop.</p><p> </p><p>She lays down and curls up into the fetal position. This is the only position that she feels like she can survive in right now. She closes her eyes and lets the tears flow. Sobs sound through the entire house as she clings to her knees. Her crying is so loud, it’s the only thing she can hear all other sounds are faded. There is a small puddle that had formed by her head from the tears that just kept coming. She just keeps repeating ‘You’re such a fucking screw up. You ruin everything good in your life. She’s too good for you’ over and over in her head.</p><p> </p><p>She has no idea how long she was laying there, but she doesn’t hear the door open she bolts into a sitting position when she feels something touch her arm. When she sees Ava her chest immediately loosens and she can finally breath, a new wave of tears are rolling down her cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>*****************************</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>Ava’s POV</strong>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t follow me”</p><p> </p><p>After storming out of the house she closes the door behind her and grabs her bike to get away from her house as fast as possible. She has no idea where she’s going, she just needs to get away from Sara. She couldn’t understand why Sara was so scared about buying a house when she first said no. Quickly she came to the conclusion that the reason she was so hesitant was because she wasn’t planning on staying in this relationship much longer.</p><p> </p><p>After Ava got this in her head she needed to clear her mind and not be in the same room as her girlfriend. She realized after about 10 minutes that she had biked to her favorite park. There was a small bench that was near a pond that she sat on to try to wrap her head around why Sara was going to leave her.</p><p> </p><p>She decided that the girl must be bored with her. ‘I mean of course she is’ she thought ‘everyone gets bored of you. You are not enough to keep someone interested for a life time. It’s a shock Sara hasn’t left sooner’. Her head was spinning and she felt the tears running down her cheeks. She doesn’t know how long she sat on the bench, she must have left her phone at home in the attempt to get out of there quickly.</p><p> </p><p>She dries her tears and gets back on the bike and heads home. They need to talk, even though Ava is convinced that this is going to be the most painful conversation she has ever had.</p><p> </p><p>********************</p><p> </p><p>When Ava walks into the house her head is down and she turns around to close the door. When she turns back to look for Sara she sees her curled up in the fetal position in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest and tears running down the face. Her anger is gone and she is running over and kneeling in front of the smaller girl to check on her. “Oh my god, Sara are you ok?” She asks her voice full of concern. She touches her girlfriends arm and she bolts into a sitting position. It seems like the girl didn’t even ear the front door open.</p><p> </p><p>“Sara, are you ok? What happened?” Ava repeats. She has never seen the girl cry this hard. Not when she lost her first patient or even when she broke down on the anniversary of her mom’s death.</p><p> </p><p>Sara just blinks at her for a minute before answering, “You left”. Ava immediately remembers their fight, she moves to sit down and she says, “Yeah well you were going to break up with me and I just needed a minute”. Sara is squeezing her legs in even tighter and shaking her head violently with her eyes closed as she listens to what Ava says. It seems as though she was trying to shake the words out of her head.</p><p> </p><p>‘How could Ava think that? How could she ever think she would break up with her?’</p><p> </p><p>She asks, “What?” when the taller woman finishes. “You don’t want to buy a house with me because I’m boring and you are realizing that I’ll never be enough to keep you interested forever and you were planning on breaking up with me soon” The tall girl says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.</p><p> </p><p>“Ava no! You are more than enough, you will always be enough. I just don’t think that we have enough money saved up to buy a house yet” Sara says still struggling to control the panic, but also staring at the woman in front of her. “Oh” Ava says suddenly embarrassed about how she handled the situation and that she panicked and went straight to the worst case.</p><p> </p><p>“I just thought we would get a loan. We both have good jobs and good credit scores”. Sara blinks a few times thinking, “I don’t know how any of that works. I don’t know how to do any of that.” she says. “I do” Ava answers. “Ok” Sara says a little confused about what to do now.</p><p> </p><p>“Why were you crying on the floor?” Ava asks looking at her girlfriend. “You left and I texted you, and you weren’t answering so I thought…” Sara says looking down at her hands. Ava interrupts her and says, “I didn’t have my phone”.</p><p> </p><p>She turns her head to see her phone sitting on the couch. She gets up to grab it and Sara remembers that she doesn’t even know what all the messages she sent say. “Oh, you can just ignore those” she says quickly as Ava picks up her phone, but she was already looking. After a few seconds Ava plops onto the couch seeming as though she needed to brace herself as she sees 47 unread text notifications from Sara.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Babe, can we please talk about this?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I don’t even fully understand what we are fighting about right now.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Come on! Please answer me!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Aves, I really want to talk this out. Why did you leave?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’ll give you some time to think I guess.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Look I know you’re mad, but I love you and I need you to come back.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: It’s been a little while and I haven’t heard from you. I really just need to know that you are ok. I’m getting worried.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava please.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I love you!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I know I fucked something up. I don’t know what I did, but just tell me and I will try to fix this.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I love you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I know that I fuck up everything and I’m sorry!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’m so sorry!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava, I need you. Please tell me I didn’t just ruin the best thing in my life.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I can’t have ruined the best thing in my life! I can’t!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Baby, please answer me!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava? Please answer me.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Fuck I’m such a screw up! I’m so sorry baby! I’ll try harder, or be better if you just come back to me.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’m sorry.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: You can’t just leave me like this, I can’t lose you, please!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Baby, I’m begging you to come home so I can apologize.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’m sorry!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I can fix this. I can make it right, just tell me what I did and I’ll fix everything. I’ll be better.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Please, I’ll do better!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Are you coming home?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: You are coming back right?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Please come back.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I need you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Fuck, I love you!</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Please don’t leave me.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I can’t do this without you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I can’t sleep without you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I can’t breathe without you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I really need you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’m sorry.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’m so sorry.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Ava?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: God, I fucked everything up! You are amazing and I fucking screwed up again! You deserve so much better than me.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I love you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: I’ll always love you.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Sara: Always and forever, remember?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>After reading all of the messages Ava has tears running down her face. She looks up from her phone and over to her girlfriend who seems to be cowering in the corner. “Oh my god Sara!” She says as she lets out a little sob, she wipes the tears from her face, “Of course I’ll come back. I’ll always come back. Even if I need to take a minute to clear my head, I’ll come home so we can talk through things. Always, I promise. I love you, always and forever.”</p><p> </p><p>Sara is still sitting on the floor with her eyes closed legs pulled tight to her chest as though her arms are the only things holding her together. She is trying to control her breathing.</p><p> </p><p>“Come here!” Ava says holding her hand out. The smaller girl stands up and starts to make her way over to the couch. She looked so small, she looked so pained. She gently places her hand in her girlfriends hand. Ava grips her wrist as soon as she does and pulls the girl into her. Sara ends up straddling her hips with her head on her chest and her hands gripping tightly to the sides of her shirt. Their bodies pressed together so tightly by Ava’s arms that are wrapped around the smaller girls waist.</p><p> </p><p>The second her head hits Ava’s chest she lets out a sob that echoes through the entire house. Her chest is heaving and she’s crying so hard that she feels like she might throw up. She has never been so relieve in her life. They sit like this and cry for close to 45 minutes until both of them have run out of tears. Ava is running her hands through her girlfriends hair and over her back to try and sooth her.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, Sara pulls back a little to look into her eyes for the first time since she left the house. “I’m sor…” Sara is cut off from her apology by the tall blonde placing her thumb on her lips as she shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. This was a misunderstanding and both of us jumped to the worst case immediately. You did nothing wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>Ava trails off biting her lip and trying to figure out how she wants to say what she needs to say next. “But Sara… those were panic attack texts. Those were… bad… panic attack texts. Have you ever had a panic attack like that before?”</p><p> </p><p>Sara just shrugs and looks away. “Please talk to me. You know I understand panic attacks more than anyone. Hell, you’ve probably helped me through over 100 since we started dating. I mean, even as early as our second date you helped when I started to spiral.” Sara looks back into her eyes at the mention of their second date, she remembers the panic Ava had after thinking that she had hurt her while moving into the bedroom.</p><p> </p><p>“Not one like that. It’s never been that bad. I felt like I was dying. I haven’t had one in a really long time. The last one I had was like a month before we started dating. But… I have never had one that bad” Sara says with a sad smile. “I don’t really know why they stopped, but they were always about me messing up and ruining something good” Ava tucks a piece of hair behind her girlfriends ear as she listens. “I just used to mess up a lot and people always told me that I ruined everything good in my life.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who used to tell you that” Ava asks. Sara immediately throws her gaze to the design on the other girls shirt so she didn’t have to make eye contact. “Who?” Ava asks again. “I mean it was everyone, my teachers, my coaches, friends from high school… my dad and Laurel.” Sara says pausing before admitting that her family used to say that to her.</p><p> </p><p>Ava took a breath but before she could talk the small blonde spoke up again. “But like, they’re good to me, good to us. My dad and Laurel, they have done nothing even close to what your family did. And you’ve been through worse…”</p><p> </p><p>“Woah… hold on!” Ava says stopping her girlfriend, “First, we don’t compare traumas ok? If it hurt you and caused emotional distress than it’s a trauma, doesn’t matter what I or anyone else has gone through” Ava is now holding onto both of the shorter girls cheeks and she places a quick kiss on her lips. “Second, you can love your family and still admit that they hurt you in the past. And third, you are not a screw up Sara! I have seen you accomplish amazing things in the almost 8 years we have been together. You’re not going to mess up this relationship.”</p><p> </p><p>After Sara processes what she just heard she surges forward to kiss the girl who she is currently sitting on. The kiss for several minutes, it’s not desperate like they need to rip each other’s clothes off. It’s desperate like they need to pour all of the emotions from the last few hours into the kiss.</p><p> </p><p>When the women separate Sara speaks up, “There is nothing I want more than to buy a house with you Aves.” Ava looks at her and can see the sincerity in her eyes. “You mean it? You’re not just caving because we had a fight? Because we don’t have to, we can keep living here.” Sara shakes her head. “I have been wanting to buy a house with you since we moved to Portland, I just thought that we had to save up the money to buy it outright. I’m serious Aves, I want to buy a house we can grow old in together. I’m in this for the long haul!” Ava smiled and gently rubbed her thumb over her girlfriends cheek bone. “Ok. Let’s buy a house.”</p><p> </p><p>Sara sniffles a little, “So… when did you become such a psychologist? Huh?” she smiles lightly. “It just is stuff that I picked up along the way. When you have as many panic attacks as I do you have to find ways of dealing with the emotions after in order to not trigger another one.”</p><p> </p><p>Still sitting on her girlfriends lap she speaks again, “Who knew my girlfriend was so smart?” she asks pausing for a second. “Oh wait… I did” Sara smiles as she rests their foreheads together. “You’re such a dork” Ava says pulling the girl closer by her hips.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m taking that as a compliment!” Sara says smiling. “Good… it was meant as such” the tall blonde answers. They sit in silence for several minutes just feeling the other breath as their bodies are pressed together.</p><p> </p><p>Ava breaks the silence without moving away from the girl. “I think that we both have some issues that we need to work on. Would you want to go to therapy? I have been thinking of going. Maybe we could do some couples therapy too?” Ava slowly fades her voice becoming less confident as she speaks.</p><p> </p><p>Sara pulls away and holds the girls face in her hands so she can look at her. “Yeah. I think that would be good for both of us. If you want to do that. I’m all in” Sara says. Ava just smiles at the girl. Sara pulls her in for a kiss. Their lips move together, but there is still nothing sexual about it. It’s emotional. Raw emotion.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have the words to descried the way I feel about you beautiful” Sara says going back to the position where their bodies are pressed together and her lips are brushing across Ava’s ear. “Always and forever” Ava whispers into the smaller girls ear.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the one I am probably the most proud of. I often struggle to put things into word, especially feelings. I'm dyslexic, you might have noticed that I structure my sentences differently than most, that's just part of the LD. That is part of the reason why I have a hard time describing feelings, the other is that I struggle to let myself feel emotions.</p><p>Sorry for getting so personal, I just figure if I put this out there and it helps someone, then it's worth it.</p><p>In the list of three things that Ava tell Sara towards the end of the fic, the second one has taken me a really long time to learn. So I'm going to say it, in case anyone needs to hear it. </p><p>You can love your family, and admit that they hurt you, caused pain, or neglected your needs in the past. They don't have to be absolute monsters to to fuck up and cause you trauma.</p><p>Anyway I really wanted to show Sara's panic attacks, I feel like I have shown Ava's at least mildly, and I wanted to show that they both have emotional trauma and mental health issues. </p><p>I hope you guys liked it. Let me know your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions in the comments.</p><p>If people liked it, I might try to do some more like this where it's a lot less dialogue and more how the person is feeling.</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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